Happy and blissful in their one percent paradise, the richest Americans think they can ignore how their policies have decimated the poor and the working-class.

Think they can live in a “me” society, and ignore the larger “we society.”

But they’re wrong and here’s why.

It’s pretty much common knowledge in the United States that poverty and health are inseparable. All the major indicators of physical health - diabetes, heart-disease, and even access to nutritious foods – are connected to socioeconomic status.

The poorest states like Mississippi and Arkansas are also the most obese. You can see why when you compare those maps with one of American food deserts, which are defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as places where at least 500 people live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. Those same impoverished and overweight states are also home to the most barren regions for people who want fresh food instead of the stuff they sell at a 7-Eleven or McDonald’s.

And things aren’t getting better for the poorest Americans. Today, 32 years of Reaganomics have brought us record levels of inequality and poverty. While most developed nation in the worlds have poverty rates below 10 percent,the official poverty rate here in the United States hovers around 15 percent according to the most recent Census data, an all-time high.

This means that about 46 million people struggle to make ends meet in the richest country in the world.

To make matters worse, income inequality has gotten worse in nearly every state in our country over the past three decades since Reagan became President. As reported on by the Huffington Post, “Incomes for the bottom fifth of Americans, for instance, grew about 20 percent between 1979 and 2007… [while] members of the top 1 percent saw their incomes grow by 275 percent.”

The rich getting richer and the working people and the poor getting poorer is destroying the health of the American people.

Given these facts, the one-percent thinks it has it made.

But it doesn’t.

While rich Republicans demand fewer regulations and think because they live in gated communities and send their housekeepers to shop at Whole Foods that they’re immune from industrial pollution, they’re wrong.

Earlier this month, scientists at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom explained the relationship between socioeconomic status and toxicant chemicals in American adults.

As expected, the bodies of Americans from poorer backgrounds were filled with chemicals that were almost non-existent in the bodies of rich Americans. Jessica Tyrell, one of the authors of the University of Exeter study, explained the findings in an article for Science World Report:

“Lower socioeconomic status was associated with higher levels of serum and urinary lead and cadmium, antimony, bisphenol A and three phthalates (substances mainly used in plastics)”

A build-up of cadium, she explained, is an especially important chemical indicator of poverty because it’s associated with cigarette-smoking and poor diet, behaviors that are more common among poorer Americans.

But as the University of Exeter study also shows, Americans higher-up on the socioeconomic ladder also have high amounts of toxic chemicals in their bodies. They’re different toxins, but toxins all the same.

According to the researchers, rich Americans have higher levels of toxins like mercury.

And surprise, surprise: that mercury originates in the coal fire power plants on which wealthy conservatives want fewer regulations.

The bottom line here is that toxins hurt everyone, rich or poor. While poorer Americans may be at a higher risk of dying from cadmium - caused heart disease, rich Americans have to worry about the salmon they have for Sunday dinner.

The gig is up.

The unregulated, earth-destroying capitalism that keeps the one-percent on top is killing everyone, whether they live on the Upper East Side or in the Mississippi Delta.

The fact is that we’re all – rich and poor – being poisoned by deregulated capitalism.

Comments

Death is the great equalizer. No one will reside in great mansions after they die except, perhaps, in their imaginations before they die. The poor will also imagine, before they die, that they will get their just rewards in their own imagined kingdom in the sky. Neat way for the wealthy classes to keep the majority of superstitious people from making more demands during their lifetimes. The wealthy know that the masses could, at any moment, overwhelm them and take away everything that they had stolen from the masses to begin with. The key is to keep the masses believing in nonsense...keep them stupid and controlled...and keep them fearful of some contrived outside threat while keeping them ignorant of the real inside threat. Our real enemies are the ones waving the flag the hardest. They are the connivers, the contrivers, the greedy scum bags that use all the psychological tools to enslave us.

Want to super size those fries? Said the spider to the fly! Let us fatten you up so that you are too obese and obtuse to rebel...then we'll gobble you up! And to top it all off we'll frighten you with the prospect of terrorists...don't worry, we'll protect you! We ring Pavlov's bell, and all you lowly dogs salivate with visions of savoring yet another MC Ds Supersized Scat burger or shake with fear at some Muslim Extremists come to blow you up. Boooo! Are ye askeered yet? Hungry, perhaps?

Here, buy yet another GPS or the latest cell phone so we can keep track of where you are at any moment and so we can know what you are saying and thinking. Buy yet another car with all the latest technology (so we can remotely hijack and crash your car into a tree if we deem you a nuisance)...or "move up" to a bigger more expensive house..keep those bubble prices inflating..."never a better time to buy" ..."after all, the prices will never go down"..."get in now before you miss the American Dream".

You just have to have the latest of everything... because "you're special"...."you deserve it"....just "buy now, think later!"...the commercials all tell you so...and you believe them. Your slop-fed elephantine bodies (oink, oink!) hardly fit into those designer garbage products anymore which, of course, warrants your objections to all those skinny commercials...those skinny models. The fact that most men prefer skinnier women clashes with the reality that many of those women are not so skinny anymore.

It's hard for women, and men, to fight against the psychological inducements in commercials to eat more shit burgers and fat fries..so they get fat. The men continue to lust after the skinnier women (and it is probably so that the majority of women lust after skinnier muscular men, as well). Since the manipulators still want to slop the hogs with all that junk food, they are now giving in to the demands of porcine women everywhere to sport them in more commercials as sexy and pleasing to look at. It may work to make the fat buckets happy but I don't think the men will be swayed much. They are still going to lust after skinnier women...even though, they themselves, are also buckets of fat. So the psy-ops mental manipulation machines, commercials, seems to be shifting it's strategy to encompass all the fat people who still have something left on their credit cards.

Don't worry, people, after you fall for all that psychological crap and sacrifice everything you worked for (unless you inherited it..in which case you really did nothing to earn it anyway...did you really "deserve" it to begin with?...just like many wealthy people) you will end up relatively penniless, fat, and are left with a pile of worthless junk you thought was "to die for" once. Again, death is the great equalizer. The wealthy typcoon's rotting remains won't be worth any more than the lowliest peon's rotting remains. The maggots won't care!

ALAS! Now I remember the best idea i learned from the aliens whom abducted me the other night! They said that you can't really get but so mad at the players who win the game all the time without hating the game as well. Money, on a highly evolved alien planet is not permanent. In fact they don't call it money, they call it Bennies, as in benefit. Just give me a moment, the eurika is coming i promise, For example, when young Alfonso cuts his neighbor's grass, he is paid only 3$, BUT he has the three dollars for a week, meaning everyday that week he can spend up to 3 dollars, as soon as the week is up, Alfonso must benefit another person by getting hired to cut grass or clean their garage or what have you in order to get more spending power. What this in fact produces is all the 'players' in our money game shifting their focus and efforts on the people and not the cash. The aliens also had more to say on it but I'm not gonna continue to distract from my hero, Thom Hartmann's blog page any longer. Just click on my personal blog items to find more on this cosmic concept!

Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have enacted these destructive neoliberal policies, deregulation being one of the tenets of that ideology. For example, the recent financial crisis can be traced directly back to Clinton's policies.

So I don't understand Thom's continuing campaign to set up the Republicans as the bad guys. They are both the same - they are funded by corporate money and advocate corporate friendly laws to the detriment of everyone else. The best example is corporate taxation - both parties shifted the burden of taxation from the rich and corporations to the middle and poorer classes.

"The wealthy indebt them, shift the tax burden onto the less powerful, and turn government into an oligarchy"

"This false narrative ignores the fact our greatest growth periods are those in which U.S. individual and corporate tax rates have been highest. The same is true in most countries. What is stifling economic growth is the debt overhead – owed to the 1% – and tax cuts on free lunch wealth."

And Fukushima is, and has been, leaking lots of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean. It might be a good idea to carry around Radiation Detectors in the supermarkets before you buy that fish!

The US bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima with nuclear weapons at the end of WWII, causing all kinds of long lasting radiation poisoning and resulted in thousands of mutations...deformations, neonatal creatures too ugly and heartbreaking to even look at. Wouldn't it be a real kick to think of what radiation poisoning from Fukushima disaster that the US may suffer as a kind of justifiable pay back for Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Quote Michael Hudson's "Obama's Master Class in Demagogy 101 (re:Obama's speech on July 24, 2013 on the economy)": Like any good politician, President Obama recognized that if he tells people that he knows how squeezed they are, they will assume that he intends to solve the problem he has just described – not make it worth rewarding his backers.

Without mentioning that he had promised to write down the legacy of consumer debt and real estate debt, he hoped to disarm audience resentment by acknowledging that over the past “three decades, a housing bubble, credit cards, and a churning financial sector kept the economy artificially juiced up. But by the time I took office in 2009, the bubble had burst.” So it’s not his fault; he just inherited the problem.

What’s wrong with this picture? He obviously did not expect his students to remember how Democratic Congressman Barney Frank’s got Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to agree to link the $700 billion TARP subsidy to the banks to a mortgage-debt writedown. Paulson agreed to this, if President-elect Obama would sign on. He didn’t, and the proposal sank.

President Obama also did not expect the Knox College liberal arts students to have read FDIC Chairperson Sheila Bair’s Bull by the Horns or SIGTARP Neil Barofsky’s Bailout to remember how Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner disabled any serious plan to write down mortgage debts, by explaining to Barofsky that the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) was intended merely to “foam the runway” to slow foreclosures, not prevent them.

President Obama sought to get the debt problem behind him by acknowledging up front that it had cost “millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, and their savings. The decades-long erosion of middle-class security was laid bare for all to see and feel.” Not mentioned was how this “erosion” of security was what had produced the gains of the banks and Wall Street institutions that became his largest political campaign funders.

Edward Snowden's email service company, Lavabit, has shutdown leaving a very mysterious message of what I believe is a distrust and scorn against the US government for their criminal acts....

My Fellow Users,

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.

This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.

"The Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name."

I know that, for years, every time I'd buy something at Radio Shack they would always ask for personal information...phone numbers and address info even if I paid cash. I'd always turn them down of giving them information.

But this Briefing by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of October 16, 2003 says that:

"Tandy Corporation is setting up a $24 million "fusion center" for drug information out of the OCEDTF money."

Another potential Fukushima waiting to happen in South Korea this time? Big scandal in South Korea over nuclear revelations:

".., a snowballing scandal in South Korea about bribery and faked safety tests for critical plant equipment has highlighted yet another similarity: experts say both countries’ nuclear programs suffer from a culture of collusion that has undermined their safety. Weeks of revelations about the close ties between South Korea’s nuclear power companies, their suppliers and testing companies have led the prime minister to liken the industry to a mafia."

"..investigators discovered that the questionable components are installed in 14 of South Korea’s 23 nuclear power plants. The country has already shuttered three of those reactors temporarily because the questionable parts used there were important, and more closings could follow as investigators wade through more than 120,000 test certificates filed over the past decade to see if more may have been falsified. "

AS a lavabit.com user, I'm disappointed that I wasn't given any warning that it would shut down. Now I'm missing lots of e-mail, some of it financial in nature. I do, however, support lavabit for their very difficult decision. As an American citizen, I am fed up with the Feds snooping in to everybodys private parts. (And the Feds get all huffy if anyone snoops on them!)

Flopot, I agree; both sides of the isle have sold out. There are a few idealistic exceptions who are the brunt of a lot of political jokes. Ronald Reagan opened padoras box on a scale never before witnessed with full support of the Repubes. Clinton was the first openly Republican president of the Democratic party, and he followed the Reagan mantra. We now have Democratiic elected officials

who talk the party line but are obedient to Repube tradition of selling out to the highest lobby or submitting to majority opinion. One has to wonder. I personally think the liberal/conservative agenda is an extremely valuable tool of manipulation for those powerful few at the control panel. At some point in the future it will divide this nation with violence. It is happening as we speak and it has not gone unobserved by the powers that are. Our defense budget spends a great deal of it's massive budget on sophisticated devices for civil disturbance in anticipation of the inevitable.

I am been advocating for broadened private, individual ownership of FUTURE economic growth for decades as the respect for private property solution whereby EVERY American is empowered to acquire over time a viable wealth-creating, income generating stock portfolio, without taking from those who now OWN essentially everything. This is the only feasible and practical and economic just way to prevent further greed capitalism as represented in concentrate ownership holding among the few and socialism, which puts elites at the helm of the State to dictate how and by what means the people will live. For a jolt of economic reality see "The "New Economy' Is The No Jobs Economy" at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=9524

Deregulation - lack of safe guards to reign in GREED has given 90 % of our power to billionaires, to Wall ST / Goldman sachs, B 0 A Chase Citi Bank which own 85 % of US mortgages. Thats a monopoly and it IS dangerous. We saw what banks grow MUCH TOO POWERFUL - TOO big to fail and what they did to global eco0nomy & US taxpayers in 2008 .Almost nothing has changed. since then ! Powerful has and will spend unlimited funds to make sure of that . Our democracy is DYING ! , Powerful Corps - folks like the Kochs & Adelsons have immense power over US elections. . Citizens United was final nail in that coffin ! . Ending any chance of the middle class suceeding - flourishing as they once did . Billionaires have come together to get their way aka . lower wages- few if any benefits, lack of funding for public schools . . They are succeeding at busting labor unions. which assures lower wages. Fact is: Top EFFECTIVE tax rate is lowest in many years . Many Huge Corps pay NO TAX at all . We are in another ' Gilded Age ' . Google that

Quote Flopot:Enough of the Red v Blue scam, Mr Hartmann - are ye naive or complicit. I certainly have had enough of your blogs - no better than MSM brainwashing.

Flopot ~ I understand where youre coming from. I agree. However, please try to understand the situation from Thom's point of view. He has a syndicated program on a "liberal" network with "liberal" sponsors. These people have paid for and expect a Democratic slant on the theme of the show. This is the price Thom has to pay to provide the stage and forum that intellectuals such as yourself can be attracted to have the opportunity to mingle with like minded people. A necessary evil if you will.

Please don't feel trapped by the topic or the slant presented. If you listen to Thom's show he is willing to go anywhere callers want. The same is true on this blog. Feel free to bring up any topic or any argument you see fit. The people here will be more than happy to engage. Take Thom's take with a grain of salt. Most of the consensus here is that the blue and red are dead. Don't take party posts too seriously. Make your own thread it it bothers you. I do it all the time. At least we have this blog to interact. That's better than nothing. Thank Thom for that!

Tonights blog brings to mind something Thom mentioned awhile back. He talked about a wealthy German who admitted that he didn't mind paying a high tax rate if it helped ensure that he could live without being surrounded by fellow citizens facing poverty and misery. Notice that he didn't say, I will evade taxes and lock myself away from the hauntings of a 21st century version of Bob Cratchit and his family.

In my opinion, and I've said it before, an immediate short term fix to the problem of deregulated capitalism, besides ending free trade, is to return to pre- Reagan tax rates. The long term and permanent fix is Democratic Socialism. It's a system where we the people control our economic destiny as opposed to a few billionaires controlling and bogarting everything.

Exactly The GAME is rigged to keep the common man / worker ( middle class ) down Keep Wages down- TOP tax rate DOWN- Corp subsides / Perks WAY UP ! And Wall St Banks such as Goldman - Chase - BoA even MORE powerful ! Libs & COns must STOP bickering . Thats just what the billionaires want .. It keeps our eyes off our real enemies. Very clever indeed but people can work together Thats the ONLY WAY TO WIN OUR DEMOCRACY BACK ! www.congress.gov www.senate.gov www.whitehouse.gov PLS ignore all media political ads ! They are financed by those who want to control us aka OUR common enemies !!

New Michael Hastings surveillance video of his car crashing into the tree. As the camera was moving around a bit, it appeared that it was not a fixed camera. So what would someone, a resident perhaps, be doing at 4:00AM aiming a video camera in the exact position to catch the car speed by and hit the tree and exploding?

Quote Gary Reber:I am been advocating for broadened private, individual ownership of FUTURE economic growth for decades as the respect for private property solution whereby EVERY American is empowered to acquire over time a viable wealth-creating, income generating stock portfolio, without taking from those who now OWN essentially everything.

Gary Reber ~ I feel compelled to second your advice. It can be achieved. I personally know of examples of such successful cases. However, it takes patients and long term sacrifice--something that this generation of instant gratification consumers know nothing about. However, patients, sacrifice, and long term mutual funds can indeed make a King of a pauper.

A very good friend of mine once adviced that you need to save your money so that you can make it work for you. Essentially, you enslave your money and it works so that you don't have to. It takes decades of hard work, sacrifice and commitment; but, it pays off in the end. It sets you free!

You need to save capital to get the ball rolling; and, paying off the interest on loans is no way to do that. You get nowhere fast. You need money to make money. The model the American Government has set since the administration of President Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan has set a poor example for the nation on how to manage their economic budget. The only way to fight for your economic freedom is to sacrifice, save, and invest. There is no other way.

Palindromedary ~ Are you surprised by this video? The Government--or those who have infiltrated it--have made a practice of making an example of their misdeeds ever since the film by Abraham Zapruder! If that is not the point you are trying to make please enlighten us. Otherwise, suggest we put the cameraman of this film under a microscope the way we should have done to Abraham Zapruder. That would make more progressive sense to me.

How can anyone say the red and blue are the same? Just look at the list of things that Obama did during the 11 weeks he had a veto proof senate. After that look at the 300+ bills that Nancy P passed but that were filibustered. If we have a democratically overloaded congress (no filibusters etc.), then the Nancy P bills would become law and we would be headed towards the ideas that everyone presents. Card check alone would start to solve many of our economic problems (welcome back to tariffs - we may need to override Obamas veto; high tax rates and anti-trust enforcement). All this with just a democratic overloaded congress. To attain such a congress we probably need "move to amend" to say money is not speech.

Within 24 hours of his inaugration in 2009, he ordered that the financial statistics of the top 400 families should be treated like everyone else's; that is, they should not be a classified government document.

My favorite bills that Nancy P pass included:

The bills that were filibustered would have helped our economy for both the long and short term. My favorites were the card check bill, the Disclose Act, stopping waivers for the Buy American Act of 1936 and the credits for bringing jobs back (no credits for tearing down factories to send jobs overseas.

Another Nancy P bill that would have helped our economy was a bill to establish penalities on China for currency manipulation.

Well, Mrs. Hartmann certainly but out a thought-provoking post today! Too bad she is as poor an evaluator of data as the Mr H is. One cannot lay any of the last 25yrs of economic data at the feet of Reagan for the simple reason that his policies vanished with the election of the first Bush (who never agreed with Reagan economic policies, also why he was not re-elected) and the country has been in turmoil ever since.

To blast the wealthy for providing well for their families, when most work very dilligently to accumulate wealth, is both irresponsible and un-American. As if the poor, (who are mainly poor because they do not work, or do not put forth the effort to accumulate wealth, but waste their wages on trivia), are in some way more deserving of a wealthy person's income just because they are poor! One person has no claim upon the labors and efforts of another, and that there are people in this country (liberals/democrats) who believe it is the sole business of the government to take from one person some percieved excess and give it to another (who did not earn it), is contrary to the constitution, Bill of Rights and the very concept of the American dream. To say otherwise is to suggest that all men are slaves to the whim of government fancy.

Well, Mrs. Hartmann certainly but out a thought-provoking post today! Too bad she is as poor an evaluator of data as the Mr H is. One cannot lay any of the last 25yrs of economic data at the feet of Reagan for the simple reason that his policies vanished with the election of the first Bush, who never agreed with Reagan economic policies, (which is also why he was not re-elected) and the country has been in turmoil ever since.

To blast the wealthy for providing well for their families, when most work very dilligently to accumulate wealth, is both irresponsible and un-American. As if the poor, (who are mainly poor because they do not work, or do not put forth the effort to accumulate wealth, but waste their wages on trivia), are in some way more deserving of a wealthy person's income just because they are poor! One person has no claim upon the labors and efforts of another, and that there are people in this country (liberals/democrats) who believe it is the sole business of the government to take from one person some percieved excess and give it to another (who did not earn it), is contrary to the constitution, Bill of Rights and the very concept of the American dream. To say otherwise is to suggest that all men are slaves to the whim of government fancy.

Well, Mrs. Hartmann certainly but out a thought-provoking post today! Too bad she is as poor an evaluator of data as the Mr H is. One cannot lay any of the last 25yrs of economic data at the feet of Reagan for the simple reason that his policies vanished with the election of the first Bush, who never agreed with Reagan economic policies, (which is also why he was not re-elected) and the country has been in turmoil ever since.

To blast the wealthy for providing well for their families, when most work very dilligently to accumulate wealth, is both irresponsible and un-American. As if the poor, (who are mainly poor because they do not work, or do not put forth the effort to accumulate wealth, but waste their wages on trivia), are in some way more deserving of a wealthy person's income just because they are poor! One person has no claim upon the labors and efforts of another, and that there are people in this country (liberals/democrats) who believe it is the sole business of the government to take from one person some percieved excess and give it to another (who did not earn it), is contrary to the constitution, Bill of Rights and the very concept of the American dream. To say otherwise is to suggest that all men are slaves to the whim of government fancy.

The bills that were filibustered would have helped our economy for both the long and short term. My favorites were the card check bill, the Disclose Act, stopping waivers for the Buy American Act of 1936 and the credits for bringing jobs back (no credits for tearing down factories to send jobs overseas.

Another Nancy P bill that would have helped our economy was a bill to establish penalities on China for currency manipulation.

chuckle8 ~ That's just fine and dandy! However, this same Rep. also voted for The Patriot Act; and, in front of a local crowd of her own booing constituents insisted that Edward Snowden was a criminal. I have no time to vote again for anyone whose views are so out-of-line with basic Constitutional principles. None of her feigned past attempts at serving as my representative will forego these dismal failures. Sorry! She's history as far as I am concerned!

Actually, DAnneMarc, it looks like, from the camera angle and the awning in the video, the camera person was shooting from the Pizza place on the corner. Has the same awning. Close to the street. So, being a public place (but at 4AM?) anyone could have shot the video. But since it was 4AM, and I checked and found that place usually closes at Midnight, then someone had access to inside the Pizza place after hours. WhatzaMattaYou...naw...just fageddaboutit! Hint, Hint! The CIA and Mafia has been thick as thieves for quite a while....not that I am suggesting that the Pizza place is connected to either one...but ??? Just seems odd that the earlier video of the cop sitting in his car at the intersection several blocks further North, captures this car speeding by, yet doesn't give chase, and takes a several mile circuitous route to end up at the scene. And yet another video now turns up where the camera person aims his camera to the exact spot where the crash happens and waits patiently for it to happen. Then, despite the really loud noise and flash of the explosion, the camera person doesn't seem to flinch...as if he/she is not surprised or that he/she expected such a thing to happen. This is all very strange. It does appear that the video was taken from inside the building because you can see the window casing in the video.

Palindromedary ~ Weren't you ever surprised that Zapruder never flinched as well? He was holding a 8mm movie camera for crying out loud, and panned perfectly with the President's head exploding in his view finder. This guy either had nerves of steel; or, foreknowledge of the event; and, practice to boot. Come on! Give me a break! Oh, I'm sorry! "Give-a-mia break."

What is really irresponsible and UnAmerican is when rich and powerful people rig the system so that they get way more than they deserve...they are no better than Al Capone or any of the other criminals in our history. When rich and powerful people let their ambition cheat people out of their livelihoods, out of being able to provide a decent health care for themselves and their loved ones...those are the ugliest and most hateful and disgraceful animals in the world. When they devise schemes to drain everyone else's means of survival and send our jobs overseas then they are not real Americans...they are traitors to the American people. I spit on every one of them!

Quote David in Vegas:One cannot lay any of the last 25yrs of economic data at the feet of Reagan for the simple reason that his policies vanished with the election of the first Bush (who never agreed with Reagan economic policies, also why he was not re-elected) and the country has been in turmoil ever since.

David in Vegas ~ Congratulations! That is the biggest load of crap I have heard all month. And that really says something! Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan, is indeed the Beast and the Author of all the debacles that have befallen this country in the last 33 years. And Jerry Falwell was his perfect accomplice/false prophet too. Imagine the name Falwell. What better name for a false prophet. You just can't make up this stuff. To place the blame on the fact that his other partner in crime, George H. W. Bush did not win a second term is the most stupid, irresponsible, and clearly misinformed notion I have ever heard. Did you actually live during this period and did you have your head and attention span located anywhere other than your hind regions? Obviously, you are amongst the ranks of the terminally misinformed people of this nation who need to relive the last 33 years in someone elses shoes in order to savor reality.

Please save your infantile comments for someone who was born in the last 10 years and refrain from insulting Mrs. Hartmann, her husband or anyone else on this blog. You belong in a class by yourself.

Of course if you are just kidding or being sarcastic then I apologize for not having a sense of humor. Otherwise, please crawl back into your hole.

I admit I don't know much about the Zapruder film except for watching it a zillion times over the years. I don't remember the film showing any unusual jerking after JFK got shot...but then I haven't watched it recently. But when you compare Zapruder to this guy at the Pizza place you have to take into consideration that Zapruder, and everyone there expected to see the President go by in his motorcade. The natural inclination for anyone filming would be to pan the camera as the President went by. Those view finders were not very good back then and Zapruder may not have realized what was going on as he filmed. The guy in the Pizza place was there at 4AM patiently waiting and aiming his camera in the one and only direction where he obviously expected the action would take place...could he, or an accomplice, even have triggered something in Hastings' car as it went by?

Palindromedary ~ Please! Zapruder didn't notice? Look again at the Zapruder film. Notice this: Zapruder was standing approximately 25-50 feet away from the location of the gunman who killed Kennedy. Was he wearing ear plugs? Do you not flinch when a shotgun is fired within 25-50 feet of your position? I flinch when someone lights a firecracker near me. You must either have nerves of steel or be deaf. People across the street said they heard a shotgun blast from the grassy knoll. There are photos of them diving for the ground. Was Zapruder deaf? That is the question I have never heard asked.

The FBI had visited Michael Hastings' home the day before his crash...

"..the fact that feds visited the home of the controversial journalist almost immediately prior to his untimely death is yet another facet to a story which has thrown up numerous questions about the circumstances surrounding the car crash that killed Hastings in the Hancock Park.."

"Recently released surveillance camera footage which captures the crash of Hastings’ Mercedes shows three explosions before the vehicle comes to a rest, fueling speculation that some kind of incendiary device could have triggered the blasts. In at least three 911 calls, witnesses reported loud explosions accompanying the crash."

" Zapruder was standing approximately 25-50 feet away from the location of the gunman who killed Kennedy." Interesting...you obviously are not referring to Oswald...a story I never have believed...lone gunman...my @$$! Was someone firing from the gutter? I guess that is what you would call it. There was a rectangular water drain hole at the curb and behind that, under the sidewalk, a space large enough for a gun man. And there was a man on the grassy knoll that could have been a gunman.

I'm probably going to disappear for a while..got other things I gotta do...capische? Gotta do that thing...you know...that thing...some research and then beddy bye. Unless I decide to spend some time programming my little Arduino to do weird things for me.

Palindromedary ~ I don't disagree with your theory at all. All I'm trying to add is that it is not unusual for these murderers to film their deeds. What better propaganda tool to use to scare regular people into line. "Yeah! This is what we did. We filmed it for yous alls to see. What yous gonna do about it.? Huh?" The perfect thug mentality. No more, no less. That is what wees is up against. Kapish?

Palindromedary ~ Actually, the real gunman was on the grassy knoll and about 15-20 feet away from Zapruder. 25-50 ft. was a very generously conservative estimate. The reason that Zapruder's hearing was never questioned was two fold. First, he obviously was part of the conspiracy--just like the man with the umbrella. Also, he had to be protected because if he was asked why he didn't flinch it would have been obvious that there was a second gunman suspected. However, his very film--conveniently a silent film--shows that is was obvious that there was a second gunman. The people near the grassy knoll who dived for the ground prove there was a deafening blast nearby. Defying logic and reason is a tool that the tyranny uses to create cognitive dissonance in We the People. I'm sure that is what is behind the film you shared with us tonight. As you yourself stated, there is no other justifiable reason. Just a word to the wise. Have a pleasant nights sleep, yous all.

Palindromedary ~ One last note on the Michael Hastings crash video. Who, you say was in that Pizzarilla at 4:20 am with a camera aimed at the empty street for no reason who were able to film the crash? If you remember my post weeks ago about this event I stated that the crew that did the deed were probably nearby in a building or car overlooking the street. Need I say more. Good night, my friend!

BTW Don't forget, if the delivery takes more than 20 minutes you get it for free.

Images of Thom

"Thom Hartmann seeks out interesting subjects from such disparate outposts of curiosity that you have to wonder whether or not he uncovered them or they selected him."

—Leonardo DiCaprio, actor, producer, and environmental activist

From Screwed:

"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull’s eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called ‘free market.’ Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now."

—Michael Toms, Founding President, New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network and author of A Time For Choices: Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy

From Cracking the Code:

"Thom Hartmann ought to be bronzed. His new book sets off from the same high plane as the last and offers explicit tools and how-to advice that will allow you to see, hear, and feel propaganda when it's directed at you and use the same techniques to refute it. His book would make a deaf-mute a better communicator. I want him on my reading table every day, and if you try one of his books, so will you."